Re: [Gnu-arch-users] GNU copyright assignment

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "John" == John Meinel <address@hidden> writes:

    John> FSF requires everything to be signed over to them, so that
    John> they have the legal right to defend it in court. The
    John> official ruling is that code that is not signed over cannot
    John> be incorporated.

That is simply false.  There is no official rule that code has to be
FSF-assigned to be incorporated in a GNU Project; it is simply highly
recommended.

There are projects where the FSF goes to great lengths (including
refusing "unprotected" contributions) to ensure that the code is
defensible, but even then:

(1) The HURD is based on Mach, which is CMU copyright.
(2) Emacs is riddled with Mule code, which is copyrighted by the
    nation of Japan.
(3) Emacs contains code from the Lucid Widget library, which is owned
    by Nobody Knows (at least, Jamie doesn't).

    John> If code is GPL, it's not very difficult to assign copyright
    John> to FSF, they *could* decide to do bad things with it, but I
    John> think people generally trust them. (They could re-release
    John> code with a BSD license, for instance, since they own the
    John> copyright).

No, they can't, if you sign the usual assignment.  The usual
assignment requires copyleft.  The worst thing the FSF can do is
release your documents under the GNU Fragmentation Documentation
License.  (Well, theoretically it could commit suicide in such a way
that your code passes into the public domain, but if that happens,
we're in very bad shape indeed.)


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